


No Light Without Shadow

by thetamehistorian



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Feels, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt, Spoilers Ahoy!, There is comfort I swear, post chapter 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27894670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetamehistorian/pseuds/thetamehistorian
Summary: An image of green ears, the sound of soft cooing flashes through his mind and just as quickly it is gone – blink and you’ll miss it.In the aftermath, Din reflects and regroups.Big hecking spoilers for Chapter 14. You have been warned!
Comments: 16
Kudos: 136





	No Light Without Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set immediately post Chapter 14. If you haven't seen it yet, please don't read! Consider this your final spoiler alert.  
> <3
> 
> I post occassionally on [Tumblr](https://thetamehistorian.tumblr.com/)  
> 

The crater that used to be home is still smoking faintly with residual heat as he sifts through the rubble. Not that there is much rubble.

He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, whether its equipment, or personal items, or weapons, just that there has to be something. It can’t all be lost. There is an emptiness in his chest that he cannot overcome, a numbness in his fingers when they close around the small metal ball that they had played with.

An image of green ears, the sound of soft cooing flashes through his mind and just as quickly it is gone – blink and you’ll miss it. He blinks, but the crater is still there and everything is dust.

No, not everything. There is something out there that the light is catching on and he reaches for it, pulling the beskar spear out from its shallow grave and sets it by his side and if he leans on it a little for the strength to take the next few steps out of the crater rather than just slumping to the ground then no one needs to know.

For a moment, he hopes that this is all a dream, that he is still lying on the ground at the top of the mountain, where the strange Force magic had thrown him. But when he looks up, they are still standing there, Fett and Fennec, and the illusion shatters.

Why were they still there?

“This is all that survived.”

The spear, the ball, and me.

His body aches, he’s exhausted. Perhaps if he sleeps, he’ll wake up and he’ll be back on the Crest and Grogu will be there getting into all the little nooks and crannies that he keeps telling him to stay away from. Anything would be better than this.

Boba Fett is saying something, showing him something, a chain code laid out in Mando’a and suddenly Din doesn’t care anymore, doesn’t care whether or not this man is Mandalorian because everything he cares about is gone but the other man is watching him like he’s expecting him to say something so he offers the only thing his mind can dredge up.

“Your father was a foundling.” I am a foundling, my son is a foundling. A nod. “Then that armour belongs to you.”

The fight over the armour seems trivial now so he lets it go. He moves on autopilot, the words tumble out without thought.

“Then our deal is complete.”

“Not quite.”

They offer him help and he accepts because what else can he do? The Crest is gone and their ship is his only way off the planet now. He reaches for the controls for his jetpack but he doesn’t put it on, just holds it in his free arm where something else used to nestle.

They lead the way, Fennec sneaking glances back at him every now and then as though she’s expecting something to happen, expecting him to say something, but he has nothing to offer, not anymore.

(This can’t be happening)

Din Djarin is angry, but it’s better than the emptiness.

The ball is digging into his side, aggravating a blossoming bruise, the hum of the engines is vibrating in his head. Fett and Fennec are in the cockpit of the ship. Probably for the best, he doesn’t want to think about what he might do if he saw them now.

If Fett hadn’t made him take off his jetpack, everything would be fine. He’d have been able to reach the kid in time, they would still be together. If the man hadn’t insisted he take off his stupid jetpack he could have got the kid and stolen this ship and they’d be far away from anyone trying to hurt them.

The ball is digging into his side.

Even better, if Greef and Cara had bothered to do their jobs properly and check that Gideon was dead after he’d brought down the TIE fighter on Nevarro then all of this could have been avoided and for a moment he hates them, all of them, for setting up the string of tragedies that led to this. His anger burns through him, filling the holes left by loss.

He’s always had a temper.

The ball is still digging into his side.

He reaches into the pocket and yanks it out and throws it, sharp and hard. Hears it clang against the wall and fall to the floor, rolling with the sway of the ship as it rises and breaks through the atmosphere of Tython but the moment it’s out of his grasp he wants - needs - it back. It’s all he’s got left, of the Crest and the kid both.

His hands fumble until they close around it and he slumps to the floor, head falling back against the wall and the ball held tight enough to hurt.

But still, he wants to rage and scream and break something only there’s nothing left to throw that he’s willing to part with.

For a moment he contemplates ripping his helmet off and throwing that because what good is armour that failed to protect? It hadn’t protected Grogu and it certainly hadn’t protected him from the aftermath. It would be satisfying, he knows, but still, when he goes for the seal something stops him from removing it and he doesn’t know what because he’s alone and he knows that right now neither Fett nor Fennec are going to risk coming back here.

But he can’t and now he’s angry about that too.

Grogu never saw his face, he realises, and there’s no one he can blame for that but himself.

And just like that the anger melts away and his eyes are burning and his chest is tight. He clenches his hand around the ball and breathes through it as best he can. He has to hold it together. For Grogu. For his son.

There is a time and a place for anger and anger will not help him here.

(Why, of all things, did the stupid ball survive)

  
  


Until he saw it with his own eyes, Din had never believed in magic.

But then he saw the kid lift a mudhorn and heal Greef Karga and summon the ball from his hand and suddenly he understood that the Force wasn’t a fairytale at all, that the tales his _buir_ had told him about the _jetii_ were not tales at all, but history.

Still, it had remained very much an abstract thing until suddenly it wasn’t and there was a pillar of faintly blue energy forming a barrier between him and his son. Approaching it had been like walking through mud. The sheer power of it had made his head scream in pain and it had only become worse the longer Grogu had sat there.

He knows for certain now that the Force is real, that his son is connected to it, and that it can do things beyond his comprehension.

Maybe that’s why he finds himself talking to it. Not out loud of course, the walls of Fett’s ship aren’t soundproof and although they had agreed to help him for now, he doubts that talking to himself like a madman is going to help, so he rests his head against the wall and let the questions form.

How do you address the Force? he wonders. It’s not like he has a connection to it like his son.

Still, it doesn’t stop him from pleading, in the privacy of his head, for the power that his son used so much to help. He doesn’t ask for the ability to do incredible things, nor to have a taste of the raw power his son can wield, his request is simple.

Give me something that will help me find him.

Please, I’ll do anything.

I’ll give up the Creed, I’ll help the Jedi, I’ll never let him out of my sight again until the day I die, but please, give me something.

He holds the ball tight as though it will help, as though, by using the Force around it his son might have imbued it with some of that power, because despite having met a Jedi he still doesn’t really know how this thing works. He could be doing all this for nothing, the Force might not listen to him. He isn’t special like his son.

Please.

He doesn’t know if he’s asking the Force or begging the _manda_ who had marched on before him for guidance, all he knows is that he is desperate and that he has nothing left and that the silence is slowly breaking him.

He promises to give Grogu to the Jedi one moment and to take the adoption vow the next. 

Please, he thinks, if you love him as much as I do - is the Force capable of love - help me find him, help me save him.

The revelation, when it comes, is quiet and oddly understated for its strength and its meaning.

He’s my son and I love him.

Silence.

(I’ll do anything to get him back)

  
  


This is all my fault.

The thought bounces around his head, his pleading words have long since run dry.

They are in hyperspace now, he can feel it in his bones. In the cockpit Fett and Fennec are squabbling over where to go. They probably came from Tatooine originally, considering the references to Cobb Vanth and the image he still has of Fennec slumped in the sand.

It doesn’t matter where they came from.

Nothing matters except that he has failed as a Mandalorian and as a father.

He had made so many mistakes. He can see that now. He should never have run off without his jetpack, should never have wandered so far from Grogu, should have studied more so that he might have been more prepared for what a Moff like Gideon would be capable of.

Should have checked the Crest for trackers because how else had Gideon found him after so long with no hints that he was being chased?

He should have noticed when the big and, thinking about it, pretty _kriffing_ obvious column of blue Force energy had suddenly shut off behind him. Should have heard the difference in sound. Should have made sure that whilst some of his attention was on the battle below, some of it was on his son.

He should have insisted that Grogu stay with Ahsoka.

If he had stayed on the top of the mountain for just one more minute - 

If only, if only, if only.

He cannot change what has happened, logically, he knows that, there’s no point dwelling on it.

Still, he can’t quite shake the words out of his head and he suspects he won’t be able to until Grogu is back in his arms where he belongs.

(This is all my fault)

These are the things he cannot fix. The Razor Crest is gone and this time no amount of credits, no skill of engineers is going to bring it back.

These are the things he can fix. Grogu is out there somewhere in the hands of Moff Gideon and a bunch of Imperials but it doesn’t have to end this way. He can, will, find him. He will reclaim his son from their grasp and he will make absolutely sure that this time, Gideon doesn’t walk away. He has a spear that needs breaking in.

Gideon likely thinks that he, for the most part, works alone. He does not know about the connections he has on Nevarro, or Sorgan, or Tatooine, or Trask or Corvus. Now that his mind is clearer, he realises that he knows so many people now and all of them with either a reason to hate Imps or enough of a bond with Grogu to want to help the kid.

Maybe, if Gideon knew about Ahsoka, he would have gone after her. 

She had seemed pretty attached to the kid despite all her talk to the contrary and he could tell, even then, that she didn’t like Imperials either. He could send out a message to her and be fairly sure she would help. 

Gideon might anticipate other bounty hunters or Cara and Greef, but he doubts that he is capable of standing up to a Jedi.

And who knew? Maybe Grogu had managed to reach out to another one through the Force, there might well be another Jedi closing in on him even as he thinks it.

Perhaps all isn’t lost after all.

He has alliances, he has friends, and he has a common goal that could unite them all if they were able to put aside their differences long enough to see this done.

So think, he tells himself, shoving down his lingering emotions with practiced skill. You’re a bounty hunter and this is just another target, what do you need to do? Break it down into steps and work through each in turn. Locate, scout, obtain, deliver.

Gideon’s cruiser isn’t a small thing, it’s Imperial so it’ll have a recognizable drive signature. It’s not the sort of thing that’ll go unnoticed so people have probably seen it. You already know some of what the cruiser itself is capable of, you know some of the firepower it contains, and you know one of its possible destinations because the holo on Nevarro had mentioned the doctor.

That’s as good enough a place as any to start.

All he needs is someone capable of tracking a ship like that. Neither Fett nor Fennec can, or they would have already done so and told him. Ahsoka might, but he doesn’t know for certain and he can’t afford to waste any more time.

An idea pops into his head.

It’s risky, and there are so many ways it could go wrong but if it works they’ll have a way to track Gideon down.

If it doesn't, well, he’s willing to accept the consequences.

His son needs him.

(I will fix this)

“Any ideas about where to start?” Fennec asks from her place in the doorway.

He looks up, metal ball clenched tight in one hand, spear held firmly in the other.

“Nevarro,” he says. “I need to call in a favour.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this instead of the one-shots I should have been writing oops.  
> (Also, what's this? Me writing Din Djarin without making him Force-Sensitive? Wild)


End file.
